The embodiments described herein relate generally to methods and systems for managing payment of bills, and more specifically to network-based systems and methods for managing expenses related to services provided to an employee by a service provider for which the employee is liable, wherein the employer provides a benefit to the employee by paying at least a portion of the incurred expenses directly to the service provider.
Use of mobile communication devices has become increasingly common. For example, mobile devices facilitate communication with an employee of a corporation even when the employee is away from the corporation's offices. For this and other reasons, corporations may desire use of mobile devices by employees. Costs associated with mobile devices include the cost of the mobile device (i.e., equipment costs) and the cost of the mobile service (i.e., a cellular usage plan). The cellular usage plan may include a talk portion and a data portion. For example, the plan may provide a user, for a first set monthly price, with an allotment of X minutes of talk time using the mobile device and of Y bytes of data transmission/reception. The cost of the data plan may be included within the first set monthly price or a separate data plan price.
It may be advantageous for the corporation to own the mobile devices used by their employees and/or to pay for the service. These costs may be referred to as a corporation-liable expense. Many companies enroll their employees in a company-wide shared cellular usage plan provided by a cellular service provider. Billing is simplified by having all of the employees enrolled with a single cellular service provider. An employee also can be required to return the mobile device to the corporation upon termination of their employment with the corporation if the corporation owns the mobile device. Furthermore, the corporation may be entitled to delete data stored on the mobile device upon termination of the employment if the corporation owns the mobile device. Maintaining control of the equipment and data is beneficial to the corporation; however, the corporation may not be able to meet employee requests for access to different types of equipment and service provided by different cellular phone service providers. Furthermore, typically the corporation is responsible for customer service, provisioning of the mobile devices, and other support functions related to a corporate owned and paid mobile phone service.
To satisfy employee requests for choice in their mobile device and/or plan, the corporation may provide employees with a mobile phone benefit. For example, the corporation may agree to pay for an employee's mobile usage plan; however, ultimately the employee is liable to a mobile service provider (i.e., an employee-liable expense). The corporation may reimburse the employee upon receipt of a reimbursement request from the employee. Manual entry and processing of the reimbursement requests is burdensome and does not provide an inventory of mobile devices being paid for by the corporation. Furthermore, there is no connection between the reimbursement requests and a human resources department of the corporation, where, for example, records of the corporation's agreements regarding payment of employee mobile expenses and a current employee status typically are maintained.
Alternatively, the corporation may provide the employee with a monthly stipend included in a pay check and earmarked for payment of mobile phone expenses. Reimbursement of mobile phone expenses in this manner does not provide the corporation with an inventory of mobile devices and also does not provide a connection between requests for reimbursement and the corporation's human resources department. Furthermore, an employee stipend of this sort may have negative tax consequences when compared to payments made by the corporation in response to a reimbursement request. For example, an employee stipend may be taxed as income to the employee. In contrast, a payment made by the corporation in response to a reimbursement request may be designated as a business expense. However, by paying for the mobile device expenses, the corporation may maintain the right to delete data stored on the mobile device of an employee upon termination of the employee.
Accordingly, it is desirable to have a network-based system and method of managing employee-liable expenses by an employer that will address the disadvantages of the known systems described above.